The Cobra and the Curse
by LadyDivine91
Summary: Kurt travels the desert alone, entertaining the masses from bazaar to bazaar, accompanied by his loyal golden cobra, which he carries wrapped around his arm as opposed to in a basket the way most snake charmers do. People say he is searching for a rare jewel that can break a powerful curse he suffers. But that's only a portion of the truth. The rest is far more heartbreaking.


**_A/N: This is a rewrite, and namely because I have always wanted sunshineoptimismandangels and riverance to read it. If I continue it as a longer story, it will probably be for Kurtbastian or as an original work. Warning for angst, curses, and snakes._**

The sun made its appearance earlier than usual and refused to be ignored. By noon, the tiny marketplace baked beneath its relentless glow so that the ground cracked, and any drop of moisture sizzled immediately and evaporated away. Undeterred, the bazaar teemed with the unwashed masses, haggling their way through their daily shopping. Vendors tried to outwit the heat by constructing makeshift tents, basic wood frames covered in light fabric to protect them from the fiery sky, but all it succeeded in doing was trapping the heat, turning what was once uncomfortable to truly unbearable.

Kurt sat alone on his intricately woven carpet, a gold veil covering his face, shielding all but his blue eyes. He sat removed from the bustling mob, tucked strategically in a shady corner. He set up his rug at a distance to avoid the persistent scorching white light and mind numbing stench, but close enough that airy strains of music from his flute lured passing treasure hunters to stop and watch and listen … and hopefully pay.

Most passersby only absently regarded the snake charmers. Snake charmers weren't unusual in the marketplace, but Kurt and his cobra drew a bigger audience than most, even on brutally hot days, which greatly outnumbered the cool, overcast days now that the full force of summer had set in.

His alluring music trapped the unsuspecting, but it was the gorgeous, venomous creature under his complete control that hypnotized them, and they paid Kurt handsomely for the honor of its company. New to this bazaar in particular, Kurt showed up to the same spot day after day, and as his popularity grew, so did suspicion from local authorities, who couldn't understand the appeal of one vagrant flute player and his pet snake compared to the rest that their town had to offer.

It wasn't too long before they decided to find out.

"And what do we have here?"

The crowd in front of Kurt's carpet parted to let the chief of the guard and two of his men approach. The sour looking man in the lead, haggard from the intense heat, stopped right in front of Kurt. He was a rotund man, with piercing brown eyes peeking out from narrow slits, and a full beard covered in the ash that drifted through the air from the many food tents. The remaining onlookers dispersed quickly, leaving Kurt to face the three law men alone.

Most foreign visitors to the marketplace were wary of law enforcement; even innocent people kept their distance.

Kurt, however, was far from impressed.

"May I help you gentlemen?" he asked with the pretense of civility. "Or did you come to hear me play?"

"I came to ask you a few questions," the chief guard said, gruff in tone. He wiped an ocean of sweat from his brow with one meaty hand, then dried that hand on the leg of his pants, depositing a swath of murky brown onto the camel-colored fabric. Kurt cringed beneath his veil in disgust.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I was just packing it in for the day."

Kurt clicked his tongue and the snake turned to him. The men stepped back, watching in horror and in wonder as the dangerous reptile launched itself at the man's outstretched arm. The chief almost yelled a warning, but Kurt flashed stormy eyes at him, and he froze. The snake slithered up Kurt's arm, winding itself tightly as it went, until its entire body was but an ornament on Kurt's sleeve. Only a bit of its scaly form and its spread hood stood erect. Eerily following their movements, the snake kept its black eyes fixed on the three shocked men.

"Do you not have a hook to control that creature?" one of the lesser guards said, eyes wide. "Or a basket to transport it in?"

"Why?" Kurt asked innocently. "I'm not in any danger."

"I've heard of you," the third man put in.

"Have you?" Kurt returned nonplussed, but listening intently.

"Yes." The man eyed Kurt cautiously. "People say you travel from bazaar to bazaar, looking for a rare jewel that will help you break some terrible curse."

Kurt smirked and rolled his eyes.

"Really?" Kurt rolled his rug and tied it. "I would think an intelligent official like yourself would be more selective about what he believes."

"They say you and this … this _creature_ … have an unnatural relationship."

"Do they now?" Kurt chuckled, standing with the cobra wrapped possessively around his arm. "Would you like to take that up with him?"

Kurt moved swiftly forward. The men scuttled back, the two behind their chief almost crowding behind him to get away, and Kurt laughed softly at the look of fear on their faces.

The guards watched Kurt gather up the remainder of his things. Kurt cooed at his snake as if they weren't even there, kissing it gently on the hood like an old friend. The chief didn't like it. He didn't like any of it. This man was no ordinary snake charmer, no matter what he wanted them to think, and the chief would feel much more at ease once he packed up his rug for good and moved on. He tried to think of a way to make that happen sooner than later, but apart from having the man dealt with in the dead of night, the chief could come up with no other solution. Kurt tucked his rug under his arm, tossed his flute over his shoulder by its leather strap, and paying the three guards no heed, walked away.

"You'd better watch yourself, snake charmer," the surly man spat at Kurt's back. "I'm not sure I like your kind hanging around my marketplace."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kurt returned as he continued on without a glance back.

Kurt walked the vacant stretch of desert outside the boundaries of town, out beyond the first dune to the nomad camp where he had been lent a tent to occupy. On his journey north, a clan of travelers had come across him. They were drawn to him first by his unburnt pale skin, strange for people living in those parts, and his sea blue eyes. After taking audience with him, watching him charm his impressive reptile, and seeing the imposing beast eating patiently from his hand, the elders of the clan took finding him as an omen, and offered him their protection.

Kurt bowed in salaam to the men standing guard, and they returned the greeting to him, as well as to his snake. Kurt walked through the encampment toward his lonely tent, bowing to those he passed who spoke blessings to him, smiling demurely to those who showered praise upon him. At the entrance to his tent, he turned his attention to the sky, and saw the sun sinking low. He hurried in and shut tight the heavy flaps, rushing to prepare. He left the cobra on its carpet with its dinner. Kurt lit oil candles and burnt incense. He quickly bathed, scenting his hair and skin with perfumes. He put on his finest clothes, ones that rarely saw the light of day as of late. His stomach swooped with such excitement that he didn't eat a bite of his dinner, instead drinking from a flask of wine to calm his butterflies.

A voice, soft and rich like fine velvet, stirred them up again.

"I appreciate all the trouble you go through dressing for me, darling. It's such a shame I'm just going to tear your clothing off of you."

After ten long years without hearing it, that voice of pure seduction sounded like the answer to a prayer, the fulfillment of a dream. Kurt couldn't speak in its presence, so he didn't. He turned and launched himself at the incredible creature, only partially human for the moment since the sun hadn't fully set.

 _Blaine_.

Kurt's one and only true love, the two of them victims of an evil, sadistic curse that kept them apart for all but one night every ten years. And tonight was the night they had been waiting for – their one night together.

Kurt ran his hands down Blaine's body of smooth, golden scales, feeling them shift and reform beneath his fingers as they became human skin. Blaine backed away sorrowfully from Kurt's kiss, not wanting to touch him with a serpent's tongue or accidentally bite him with his fangs, but Kurt insisted, claiming Blaine's lips with a famished moan.

"I think we are getting closer, my love," Kurt said, kissing the hood that still surrounded Blaine's head. "At least they've heard of us here. Someone might know something. But you have to be careful. But the officials are suspicious. Please … be careful."

"I will," Blaine hissed, shutting his inhuman black eyes to absorb the feeling of Kurt's tongue licking around the shell of now human ears. When he opened his eyes again, they were golden hazel eyes. _Human_ eyes.

Blaine gazed upon Kurt's face with these eyes for the first time in a decade, and smiled.

"Ten years," he whispered, his forked tongue rounding out and his reptilian hiss gone, "and you don't look as if you've aged a day."

"But, I have," Kurt said sadly, taking Blaine's scaled hand and holding it to his heart. "In here. In my heart and in my soul, I grow older, weaker." When he looked into Blaine's eyes, they were shimmering with tears. "I've lost ten years so far. You've lost _twenty_! I … I can't take this much longer! Please … please tell me you'll find it? Please promise me you'll succeed where I've failed?"

"You haven't failed," Blaine said softly. "You got us here. You've kept us alive. We'll find the gem that breaks our curse together. I can feel it."

Kurt nodded, but he didn't look all that hopeful.

Blaine sighed and pulled Kurt close, his transformation still far from complete.

"What can I give you, my love?" Blaine asked. "What can I do to ease your burden?"

"I only need you, my love. I need the soothing cool of your body to keep me sane, your mouth on mine to help me forget … for just this one night."

"Don't you want to wait until I've completely changed?" Blaine asked, but he was already burning with want, with need, his hands on his lover's body, helping him disrobe.

"No," Kurt said with a stern note of finality. "I don't want to wait to have you a minute longer."

Blaine leaned in for another kiss. "Then let's not wait."

Nights in the desert during the summer aren't long enough for those lingering under a curse. Kurt knew that. He cursed it every day. But it's all they had, all they were going to get, a blessing that, after all this time, was almost too cruel to be thankful for.

The nomads were lulled to sleep by a symphony of moans and felt contented, knowing that the gods they harbored were pleased with the hospitality given them. But those moans turned to sobs when the first light of the sun touched the horizon. All too soon, a slightly shorter man, dressed in plain clothes but wearing a blue veil, emerged from the snake charmer's tent. The nomads bowed to him without alarm as gods are known to change shape from time to time in order to hide from the dangers of the mortal. The man headed back to town with a carpet tucked beneath his arm, a flute dangling from his shoulder by a leather thong, and a magnificent blue cobra, glittering like a sapphire beneath the merciless light of morning, wrapped around his bicep.

The man set up in the shady spot. He took his time laying out his carpet and tuning his flute. The bazaar was far from bustling yet, so he had a few moments to spare. Besides, earning coin wasn't his goal for the day. He had a feeling that something was forthcoming.

And he was right.

This time, the guards arrived early.

The smug chief stepped up, prepared to harass the mysterious vagrant, but stopped short when his eyes fell upon the man's covered face. Even shrouded by his blue veil with barely an inch of skin to be seen, the chief knew the man had changed.

"What happened to you?" the confounded chief asked.

"I have no idea what you mean," the snake charmer said, nonchalantly disregarding the chief and his guards.

"Where is the man who was here yesterday?"

The veiled man looked up, then looked around, finally meeting the chief's gaze.

"Who?"

"The snake charmer …"

At this, the veiled man looked down at his cobra, then at his flute, and back up at the flustered guard with sarcastic humor in his eyes.

"The other snake charmer," the chief groaned with frustration. "The one with the pale face and blue eyes. He had a cobra just like yours."

"There is no cobra like _mine_ ," Blaine remarked sourly.

"He carried it the same ludicrous way, too," the chief said, ignoring that comment, "only his was a brilliant gold. A gold like … like … like priceless jewelry." The chief stuttered to explain himself, looking around to find something he could compare the color to. Then he stopped, squinting inquisitively into the veiled man's face. "A gold exactly like … the color of your eyes …"

Blaine smirked. He looked to the blue cobra wrapped around his arm. The animal slithered closer to his face and nuzzled its head against Blaine's chin. Blaine sighed wistfully, his eyes beset with a tremendous pain.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."


End file.
